Thursday, March 19, 2015

A New Deal for Charedim?

Now that all the bluster about the elections in Israel seems
to be subsiding a bit, there is one area dear to me that has been under-discussed. What will be the fate of Charedi world now?

It is no secret that the Charedi world in Israel is in deep
crisis with respect to its financial future. The poverty level is at an all
time high. As is its exponentially growing population. If the trend continues this crisis may be their breaking point.

They will deny that of course. While admitting the extent
of their poverty, they will deny that they will ever be threatened by it since
they truly believe that full time Torah study for men – even at the expense of
supporting their families - is what God expects of them. But the poverty is
real and they know it. That is made obvious by new Kollel financing programs
like Adopt-a-Kollel. The literal cries to support it from rabbinic leadership
in both Israel and America is proof of that knowledge.

To an extent I suppose it has been helpful. The American Orthodox Jew - already overtaxed
by tuitions is somehow finding the monthly dollars to send overseas to Kollelim in Israel. But that is a drop in the bucket in the face of an ever growing
population that is increasingly unable to feed their very large families.

The reason they are in such dire financial straits is
because the vast majority of them do not work –and study Torah full time
instead. Those that end up working are in most cases unprepared. So they do not
generally get the kind of jobs that will not improve their financial lot all
that much. Yeshivas and Kollels in
Israel admittedly are not in the job preparation business and do not offer any
kind of core curriculum that would help prepare them that way.

There are outside
programs that are designed to help Charedim catch up with their secular
counterparts and get training for good jobs. But I suspect that a lot
of Charedim are simply not able to do it. They have big families to feed
too – and they are stuck in low paying menial jobs.

The Charedi leadership does not see their poverty that way.They blame the last Israeli government for it. Subsidies to large families
were severely reduced. Israel could no longer afford to increase budget
deficits by subsidizing an exploding demographic. But the Charedi
leadership saw government subsides given to large families as an entitlement.
One that their very survival depended on – yanked out from under them.

They characterized the people behind this as an evil cabal taking
food from the mouths of babies! That
their exploding demographic caused Israel to reconsider paying them increasing amounts of
money that it doesn’t have - didn’t seem to occur to them. Decades of handouts
was the unquestioned norm that was suddenly taken away be a government consisting
of philosophical Amalekites!

I suppose they justified this to themselves by saying that
their singular Limud HaTorah (Torah study) and Avodas Hashem (devotion to God)
was deserving of that money. The anti
Torah Jews in government who drastically reduced funding to large families purposefully
did it to hurt Charedim.

But the government didn’t just take away their entitlements
and walk away. They tried to replace it with a program designed to enable them
to help themselves. It was a 2 pronged
approach designed to kill 2 birds with one stone.

The need for security in Israel is beyond obvious. The most
important cog in that wheel is the Israeli Defense Forces. Everyone in Israel
must serve in some capacity. Many young people have died doing so. Many more
have been permanently injured. But Israelis
who decide to study full time have been exempt from any service to country. That
means all Charedim. That is what they are indoctrinated to do practically from
the day they are born.

Part of that policy was that one could not go to work unless
he served in the army in some capacity. Which contributed to their inability to
support their families. The last government did something about that. First
they passed a law that all Charedim must serve except for the elitist of
students. About 1800 would be fully exempt and supported. The rest must serve
in some capacity. Failure to do so would be considered draft evasion. The penalty of which is jail. They also now required a core secular curriculum be established in
any Charedi school that wanted financial support from the government.

These new laws were completely unacceptable to Charedi who
still felt they had a right to educate their people any way they saw fit. They
characterized the new draft law as putting people in jail for studying Torah! A
ridiculous spin! But one which they still use. They considered it a ‘Gezeiras
Shmad’! A government law tantamount to
forcing their people to convert to another religion! But they had faith that
the ‘evil decree’ would be rescinded from heaven. That God would eventually see
to it that the government who did this to them is destroyed.

Last Tuesday, that happened. Although the religious parties
lost seats, they will gain power. That’s because the new governing coalition
will almost certainly contain the religious parties. And they will demand an
end to the laws they saw as being against them. They will demand that the draft
laws be rescinded. They will demand a restoration of the child support entitlement,
They will demand removing the requirement for a core secular curriculum.

In short
they will demand all the hard work and progress made by the last government be
eliminated and that the status qou ante be restored. Netanyahu needs them in his
coalition. They will basically support his polices that do not involve them
directly. So he will give in to at least some or most of their demands. The
only question is how many. Will Charedim get everything they demand? Will they
refuse to otherwise join? Or will they compromise?

I hate to see all the progress made in this regard
destroyed. That Charedim do not approve does not mean it won’t help them. In my view the only way they can survive is if
their financial situation improves. And that requires at least some of what the
government did to remain in place.

For me it is all about education. My hope is
that the government sticks to its guns in at least one area: requiring a core secular curriculum in their elementary
and high schools in order to get funding. The same type of curriculum found in most
Charedi schools in America. If the Charedi parties can agree to at least that
one thing, then the entire enterprise of the last governing coalition will have
not been in vain. And the Charedi world will flourish as never before.

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About Me

My outlook on Judaism is based mostly on the teachings of my primary Rebbe, Rabbi Aaron Soloveichik from whom I received my rabbinic ordination. It is also based on a search for spiritual truth. Among the various sources that put me on the right path, two great philosophic works stand out: “Halakhic Man” and “Lonely Man of Faith” authored by the pre-eminent Jewish philosopher and theologian, Rabbi, Dr. Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Of great significance is Rabbi, Dr. Norman Lamm's conceptualization and models of Torah U’Mada and Dr. Eliezer Berkovits who introduced me to the world of philosophic thought. Among my early influences were two pioneers of American Elementary Torah Chinuch, Rabbis Shmuel Kaufman and Yaakov Levi. The Yeshivos I attended were Yeshivas Telshe for early high school and more significantly, the Hebrew Theological College where for a period of ten years, my Rebbeim included such great Rabbinic figures as Rabbis Mordechai Rogov, Shmaryahu Meltzer, Yaakov Perlow, Herzl Kaplan, and Selig Starr. I also attended Roosevelt University where I received my Bachelor's Degree - majoring in Psychology.